merittmusings

No Need

www.bible.com/72/php.4.19.hcsb

Need anything? This question gets asked around our house when someone is texting from WalMart or Kroger or somewhere else. It is an expression of love, a willingness to get something when that person can’t physically be at the store, but still lacks.

As Christians, especially American Christians, we have so much and our needs are so often met that it’s hard to discern between what we need and what we desire. I imagine God sees our needs in a couple of ways, our physical needs (air, water, food, shelter, clothing), our social needs (companionship, love, mentoring), and our spiritual needs (forgiveness, grace, knowledge, hope, faith, and love). My lists are not exhaustive but point to some things as human beings we need, but often neglect. We favor and savor desires for self and pleasure more than we ask for peace and joy. We might prefer a slice of chocolate cake over reading and savoring a passage of Scripture. Or maybe going out to the movies than a Home Bible Study.

Yet God knows what we need. If we will seek Him, He will supply all of them through Christ Jesus. We cannot get what we need through Shiva, Baal or Isis. Nor through Mohammed, atheism, or Wicca. There is only one path to meet the needs that God Himself installed: Jesus Christ.

So which of the countless ways to Jesus is the right path? It’s easy to dismiss alternative religions, but Christians don’t make it any easier. How can I know which church is true? Don’t be daunted by the number of Churches. Christian Churches all follow the same Bible and preach the same Jesus, more or less. Whether you find a Methodist, Baptist, Christian, Catholic, Pentecostal, Apostolic, or Fundamentalist, all of these churches revere Jesus and worship Him. But I would not attend a church that doesn’t believe in the Bible and teaches from it regularly. If they need other books, walk away. If they don’t preach salvation through Jesus, leave them behind. I can’t tell you which one to go to, because some individual churches in extremely liberal denominations are still very conservative and preach and teach Jesus and the Bible. Some pastors have not given in to social pressure and still preach truth. But they are getting harder to find. For myself, I attend a Southern Baptist-type church on Sunday morning and an acapella Church of Christ on Wednesday night. That’s where I am at present.

If you can’t find a good church, at least start reading the Bible on your own. Get a group of you and some interested friends to study together. That’s how the church started, followers of Jesus meeting in homes. I want to encourage you to become part of a fellowship as soon as possible.

Well, that’s all I’ve got for now. Have a great Thursday and God bless!

A Better Life

A thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.
John 10:10 HCSB

https://bible.com/bible/72/jhn.10.10.HCSB

When my church started over ten years ago, they called themselves Crosspoint. Before long, however, they discovered they were not unique, and started getting mail and donations meant for other churches so named. Apparently “Crosspoint” is a common choose for new church plants. So they began looking for a new name, finding it this verse in the New Living Translation, where Jesus promised not just an abundant life, but as the NLT puts it, a better life. That stuck, and so John 10:10 has been the theme verse of Better Life Church ever since. (See betterlife.church).

Sounds like an amazing verse, maybe even a good theme verse, but what does it mean? The context clues here are minimal. You have to pull your focusing from just this verse to find that Jesus is talking about shepherding. Jesus is borrowing his analogy from herding sheep. Wow. So how do we get from herding sheep to a better life? I’m this verse, Jesus contrasts the intent and work of the thief and the shepherd. The thief’s only concern is how many sheep he can steal and even destroy for his own gain. In those days, sheep were a valuable commodity and resource. They did not Brand sheep as they do cattle today to establish ownership. Sheep were also fairly dumb, and would do just about anything you could lead them to. Sheep easily wander off. But one thing sheep can do is recognize the voice of their shepherd. At the end of the day, shepherds would round up their flock and need them into a sheepfold, and he would close the door of the Sheffield behind him to keep them in.

Jesus also said, “I am the door”, referring to this method of ingress/ egress from the sheep fold. He likened the sheep fold to being in the church or the kingdom and the pastures to be the outside world. Jesus alone is the only way into the safety of the Kingdom.

Jesus also said, “I am the good shepherd”, referring to this role. He is the Voice of the One calling the sheep, the staff of whom protects them from evil, and from the thief. Jesus is the Shepherd agonists down His life to protect the sheep. While Jesus is the Great Shepherd, He calls men to be His assistants, also called shepherds. We Anglicize the Greek term and call them “pastors”.

With its context in mind, Jesus’ more abundant life is in contrast with the death and destruction offered by the thief. While the thief offers death, Jesus offers life. The person behind the thief should be obvious: it is the Enemy. He has no interest in the life of the sheep but only in what He can get from them and the damage he can cause for God’s people. His death is eternal death. Jesus offers life, life of abundance (for sheep that means green pastures and still Waters and plenty of it). So what does this mean for the Christian? You will never run out of what you need. He is faithful to supply everything He decides as a Shepherd that you need. He knows what you need at every moment, even if you don’t. Because like sheep, we don’t always know what that is. But He works to meet our needs before we even ask because He knows us so well. The flipside of it is this; if we don’t have it, we don’t need it yet.

Ouch

The promise of Better life, more than we could dream of, is also trust in the Shepherd to foresee and supply at the right time. That takes a lot of trust from the sheep. Can we depend on the Lord to provide at the right time? That is the better life He offers.

Well, I hope you have a good day. May God give you exactly what you need at the right time. 😃

1001 – Source Code 9 -A Need for Trust

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
(Exo 20:16)

On the face of it, this seems like a legal issue. Bearing a false witness against your neighbor, in a courtroom, would be an offense even today. To be convicted of perjury is a serious crime. But the intent of this I believe goes much deeper. It intends to drive toward the heart of human interaction. That is the nature of truth and honesty in our relationships.

Can you exist in this world without truth? First, let us define what truth is. The Christian answer of course is “Jesus” but we need to do a little bit more than that. Truth is that which corresponds to reality. Reality is determined by what we discern with our five senses, even to scientific observation, to what is testable, provable, and established by repeated experimentation. To tell the truth is to tell a story that corresponds with the evidence and/ or with other’s testimony. There is only one truth, only one way that things happen. The rest is interpretation and perspective.

So let’s take a look at the most important fact of Human and Christian history: The Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Is it true that Jesus Christ rose from the dead? We have eye-witness testimony. And while it doesn’t all agree 100%, it agrees enough to establish the fact that Jesus did in fact rise from the dead on a Sunday morning in the first century outside the city of Jerusalem in Israel about 2000 years ago. The differences between the accounts establish that the testimony comes from several eye-witnesses, rather than one single witness. That all four observed different details actually helps to support the truth that Jesus Christ rose from the dead.

If you have four witness to a car accident, all four of them will attest to different details. The color of the car, how fast it was going, etc., because their perspectives are different. When the officer on the scene questions the witnesses, he expects four different versions, but not one of them is going to say there was no car accident. That’s the crux of the story. All four of them will agree that a car accident did happen.

Alternative theories have been proposed, like mass hallucination, or Jesus’ fainting on the cross, or that the disciples went to the wrong tomb. But remember that Romans knew how to crucify. The Jews knew where the body was buried. Those who opposed the founding of Christianity could easily have produced a body if there was one to produce. And the fact that eye-witness after eye-witness refused to recant, even on threat of death, points to the remarkable truth that is the resurrection. No one dies for a lie. And the truth of the resurrection was so transforming, that the men who saw it were willing to stake their lives on it, believing that resurrection was waiting for them. That’s a transformative truth. There are many better and more profound defenses of this, but this is sufficient for our needs here.

The greatest truth of all time, that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead, becomes the foundation for the rest of Jesus’ life and ministry, and His claims that He is God, the Creator God and He both exist as One. Though He taught with authority, they are now imbued with eternal significance, because He is God. The whole of the Bible, from those who prophesied His coming, to those who proclaimed His resurrection, is granted divine status, because God kept His Word. And He continues to keep His Word.

God does not lie. Consider that. God does not bear a false witness. If Jesus rose from the dead, then the Bible is true, because God is real. And God does not lie.

Now, why is it so important for those who claim to follow God to tell the truth? If Someone ever tells you something about God which isn’t true, does that make God a liar? If someone claims that Jesus is coming back at a time in the near future, and then it doesn’t happen, does that make God a liar, or man? Do you know how many of these predictions have been made and failed? Do you know how many people have followed these false teachers only to be disillusioned and fall away? Many Christians were only faithful on the imminent threat that Jesus was going to come and take them all away. They weren’t prepared to live their whole lives for Jesus. That’s too hard.

My friends, if we are going to claim that God says or does anything, we are at greater peril if we are lying. When God speaks, He is speaking reality. When we repeat His words, we had better make sure they are as accurate as we can make them.

And that goes for our actions as Christians. If we work and act in Jesus’ name, then we had better be working and acting as Jesus would. I’ve heard it said that many Christians live as practical atheists. Is that true? If Jesus only matters when people are watching, then it may be true. If Jesus only matters when you are paid to be holy, then yes, you may be a practical atheist. Only the fool lies to himself when he says, “There is no God” especially in private.

Many a Christian has lied, and many Christians will stand before God in the judgment. But God sent His Son to pay the penalty for our sins. But God sent His Son to grant us grace. But God sent His Son to show us truth. Pontius Pilate asks, “What is truth?”, the absolutely most profound question in the universe. How can I know what is true, when there are so many who wish to lie to me for their benefit? How can I know the truth when it seems I can’t trust my own senses? The world is trying to gaslight us and tell us a great big lie, that there is no God. But our own senses riot against the lie. We see order. We see Laws of Nature. We see awe-inspiring creation. There must be Something bigger than ourselves. There just has to be.

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” The way of Jesus is more reliable than any path of any map. This is the way of humility, joy, grace, and peace. This is the path through the storms of life, the craziness that surrounds us and the chaos. The truth of Jesus is the absolute standard of truth. Everyone will be measured by Him. All truth will be measured by His standard. He IS the LIFE. Everything else is DEATH. You cannot LIVE, have that abundant, better LIFE without Jesus. Everything else leads to death. All you seeking of pleasure, or fun, your pursuit of happiness, every other path leads to death. Morbid? Sure. But Jesus’ work as Navigator has never steered me wrong. There is no other way that leads to life, except Jesus’ way, the way of truth.

Do you want to know what truth is? First, admit that you aren’t God. You don’t have the corner on the truth. Second, learn the beginning of wisdom, the fear of the Lord. Third, if you haven’t made that transformation yet, apply yourself to faith in Jesus’ resurrection. He did die and rise again, for you. Believe in Jesus’ Resurrection, His life and work, not as fairy tales, but as real things. Repent of your own sins before a holy God and confession that you are a sinner, in need of God’s grace. Confess before others that Jesus is real, Jesus is alive, and Jesus is Lord, the Son of God. Submit yourself to baptism, not just the hands and feet, but the whole body into water, sealed with the One Name, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Then you too will receive the gift, get this, the gift of forgiveness.

Imagine being forgiven. All those sins you just confessed, all those harms and hurts you’ve dished out, all of that, forgiven. That’s God’s love. Just give Him all your sins, and He forgives you, because Jesus poured out His own blood for you. Jesus died to save your life. And He lives now, because death couldn’t hold Him. God freely grants you forgiveness and the gift of His Own Presence in the Holy Spirit. God dwells in you. He isn’t content to save you and give you forgiveness. He wants to spend the rest of your life with you. He loves you that much. And yes, that means eternity in Heaven too.

God is truth. If you represent Him, then you too must be true. Don’t lie, don’t think that making converts on a lie is going to be blessed. Tell the Truth. God bless.

Babblers

When you pray, don’t babble like the idolaters, since they imagine they’ll be heard for their many words. Don’t be like them, because your Father knows the things you need before you ask Him.
Matthew 6:7‭-‬8 HCSB

https://bible.com/bible/72/mat.6.7-8.HCSB

A long time ago, God came down to see what men were up to. He saw that they were building a tower, that by some pretension was designed to reach the heavens. God disagreed. He said that men working together could achieve nearly anything,but instead of destroying the tower, destroyed their unity by confounding their languages. And from this event, we get the word “Babylon”. Their languages were confused and to each to the other it sounded like babbling.

Several thousand years later, Jesus makes this comment to His disciples. “When you pray, don’t babble . . .”. Now wait a minute. Why does it sound like babbling on the first place? Didn’t God make us babble from the beginning? Something is not right here. Does this mean that God demands a special prayer language when we pray?

Actually, no, because while Jesus is using the same sounding term in English, the term babble has come to us with different meanings attached. Primary is the babbling we hear when we don’t understand a language. It sounds like meaningless chatter. But a secondary meaning has come to us, and that is an understandable language, but with no meaning. Kind of like political speech, where someone keeps talking and talking, but doesn’t say anything. It’s just noise. That’s the babbling Jesus is speaking of here.

So the warning here is to avoid long, meaningless prayers when a few words will get your point across. Get to the point in prayer. Don’t worry about flowery speech and the “right” words. Say what you need to say. That’s what God wants to hear.

How is your prayer life doing? Are you saying what you need to say? Whether your prayers are answered or not, God does listen. He knows your heart and He knows your needs. He is already working and effecting change in your life, preparing your for your next step, whatever that may be.

My prayer for you today is that your relationship with God is strengthened. May God bless you this day with purpose and direction, and the wisdom that goes along with it.

The Future’s So Bright

www.bible.com/72/dan.12.3.hcsb

Great verse huh? It gets even better when you read it in context. In isolation, it sounds like a great commendation for those who are followers of Jesus. But it’s much more than that. You see this verse follows in Daniel 12 a short word about the resurrection at the end of time. There are those who will rise and be in heaven and those whose resurrection means eternal sorrow. It’s actually one of the first OT mentions of the eternal life of the damned, that they will suffer eternally, just as the righteous will dwell in heaven eternally.

But this verse changes subtly when placed in this context. Instead of a present commendation, it becomes a future reward. Those who are wise (in this life) will shine like the expanse of heaven (in the next) and those who lead others to righteousness (in this life) will shine like the stars forever and ever (in the next).

It emphasizes the importance (in this pre-Christian text) that God is watching what you do, and two things He values eternally is wisdom (which begins with Him) and leading others to (His) righteousness. Yes it is all about God, but He made us and does get all the credit. He values our recognition of that and our efforts to lead others to Him. With the advent of Jesus Christ, we have even more reason to do so.

May your Monday keep this one fact in mind. Today is the Lord’s day too. Everyday belongs to Him.

Broken Spirit

www.bible.com/72/pro.17.22.hcsb

Have you got one of those? Has warranty on your spirit run out and now it just doesn’t work like it used to? Maybe it’s been under too much stress. You know too much stress can break a crush a spirit. Maybe you’ve worn it out trying to build up other people. Maybe you’ve used it up being too strong for too long. Whatever happened, you know when your sport is crushed.

That’s why today is a good day. Today is a day to renew your spirit. Dust yourself off. Get to a good church, and experience the joy of the Lord. The joy of the Lord will renew your spirit, and a cheerful heart will do you good, like an injection of adrenaline and cortisol. Well, maybe even better than that.

What’s a good church? A good church is where God is worshipped and the Bible is preached. You find yourself one of those. Not a place where man is worshipped and social issues preached. That does not renew the spirit, but only makes it worse, because you can get no good power from those things. You need power from someone higher than yourself to help a broken spirit. If it was a broken mind or a broken arm, man’s solutions might help. But this is a broken spirit. It needs help from God.

May God bless you today.

Immutability

www.bible.com/72/heb.13.8.hcsb

Immutability is a technical term I picked up in my doctoral studies that basically means “unchanging” or “unchangeable” which what this verse is about. Jesus Christ does not change. Yet, it is also true that Jesus learned.

In Hebrews 5:8 it is said that Jesus “learned obedience” from what he suffered. In Hebrews 2:10, it is said that Jesus was “made perfect through suffering.” From both we might infer that Jesus changed, from knowledge and experience before suffering to knowing what these things are. Immutable means that something cannot be changed, and yet here is One who seems to be changing before ours eyes.

Ok, before you start getting carried away with fears of Bible contradictions, first let’s consider He context of Hebrews 13:8. There, the author gives the warning about remembering the leaders and teachers of the faith. He says “consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.” Their Faith was on the finished work of Jesus Christ, whose work and effort is unchanging. The effect of His work is the same for everyone who believes in Him, and so everyone can live a life of of faith because He is the same Lord for all. Ok, that makes sense. But does this mean that the Lord Jesus is immutable, like God?

The fact that Jesus “learned” obedience through suffering doesn’t necessarily mean He changed. From our perspective as human beings, we see Him undergo this change from life to death to life again. We see Him suffering on the cross, following through with the plan designed from the beginning, which He has set out to do since the creation of the world. Nothing actually changed from God’s perspective. Jesus planned to suffer and die at the hands of men since before Adam sinned. That never changed.

What did change was the moment of decision in the garden. While Jesus’s divine nature never wavered, His human nature (which has been undergoing change all his life, from childhood to adulthood) was faced with choices which had the choice to obey or disobey the divine nature. Obedience was learned not in Jesus’ divine nature, which is immutable, but in His human nature. His human nature was tamed by His will to obey His divine nature.

Strangely, it is the same struggle we undergo daily. God equips is with His divine nature through His Holy Spirit, so like Jesus, we can tame our sinful human nature and teach it to obey Divine Will. We too learn obedience just as He did.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Thank the Lord He’s the same Lord today as He was for He Apostles.

God bless!

Listed as Safe from the Evil One

www.bible.com/72/2th.3.3.hcsb

Wow. If there was ever s verse needed, it’s this one. Do you need a verse that guarantees your divine protection from the diabolos? The Evil One? The Devil? I know I don’t talk much about him here, so maybe a few words would be helpful.

I was talking a few days ago to an individual who remarked that God and Satan are the same person. Why? Because they are both blamed for the same things. Cancer. Catastrophes. Calamity. Either or both are often blamed. I get that. I’ve heard it. If a child dies, did God take it or did Satan poison it? Did God make that choice, Or the devil.

Christians have wrestled with these issues for hundreds of years. We still struggle with them. I believe that is on purpose. God demands that despite all we think about why bad things happen to good people, we have to practice faith in His Word. Science and philosophy are not going to help us. This is a region where faith in what God says and faith in the nature of a kind and loving God comes in. He calls us to this faith despite our emotions and our natural anger. Will we believe in Him even when it doesn’t make sense?

It seems Satan’s work is on the rise. The first three verses of 2 Timothy 3 are becoming more relevant with each passing day. How can we hope that God is still protecting us? Try to imagine a world where God didn’t protect us. Which world is worse?

I know by faith that God and the Evil One are not the same. God is good. And I believe good is stronger than evil. Because I believe God is stronger than Satan. To say otherwise is to imagine that Satan is co-equal with God. Satan did not and will never die for me. Satan has no love in his heart for anything but himself. Satan corrupts good people. If I as a human being can know right from wrong, to know the difference, then there is a difference. If I know that there is a good so good that I can never achieve it, how can I possibly know it? Surely there is a good God who gave that insight to me. In my heart, I want good to overcome evil. Why do I want that? Where did it come from? I believe it comes from a good God who placed that in me, because I am made in His image.

This worldview requires faith. It cannot be proved beyond the shadow of a doubt. Science nor philosophy is equipped to do this. It must be understood by faith. Fortunately, it is built into us to receive this by faith, because we are made in God’s image. A fact I also know by faith. Convincing others cannot and never will be accomplished through proofs and theorems. But it comes through lives changed, families healed and hope offered.

I apprehend by faith that God will protect me from the evil one. May God protect you today.

Too Many Friends

www.bible.com/72/pro.18.24.hcsb

Is it possible to have too many friends? You can be friendly with many people, but cannot have too many good friends, and even fewer best friends. Consider your close friends. Do you have more than five? Ten? These are people that know you inside and out, not just the image you project to others. How many people know your heart? I’d say it’s not very many.

Of these close friends, who do you consider to be the best friend? Maybe one or two? Who is the first you call when you’ve got that new job or that tragic diagnosis? Are there many?

Jesus said “I no longer call you servants. I call you friends.” There is a friend who is closer than a brother. I hope you have one. Thankfully, we all have a friend who is closer than that.

God bless you today.

Great Commission

www.bible.com/72/mat.28.19.hcsb

Do you have life-goals? One of mine to to meet my grandfather. He died several years before I was born, in 1961. Never got the chance to meet him. But my grandfather became a Christian later in life, and someday when I die, I will get a chance to meet him.

To do that, I’ve got to make sure that I’ve followed God’s will to the best of my ability, and pray for His grace to be applied to the rest. There’s a lot.

So what is God’s will? Did you read the verse above? That’s the first part of the Great Commission. That’s what God wants from us. That’s what He wants us to do. He wants us to make disciples out of all the nations, all the peoples of the earth, all the languages, cultures, ethnicities, everywhere. Once one is reached in each, more can be won. Then we follow discipleship with baptism. We are are baptism into the One Name, because this is the source of our unity among such diversity of peoples. We are all saved by the same God, through the same blood and filled by the same Spirit. We are saved in Jesus. And this One Name is all Three in One, the Triunity of God.

What follows is the teaching, everything that Jesus commanded the Apostles to pass on to the Body of Christ. This is the will of God, that the whole world would be saved through His Name. It’s a big job, but we have an even greater God to work it out. We have but to plant the seeds, and God gives the increase.

What seeds of discipleship can you plant today?